CHAPTER VII.

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE PRAIRIES OF THE OLD WORLD:--HERBIVOROUS ANIMALS.

To the prodigal Flora of the Tropics, which we shall soon see displaying in the virgin forests its exuberant fecundity, corresponds a Fauna no less rich, and marked by a singular variety.

This Fauna offers, especially in the Old World, an impressive character of power, strength, superior force--I had almost said, _majesty_. In truth, if we do calmly compare the mammals and the birds of tropical America with those which roam the wild plains of Africa, Hindostan, the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and the great islands of the Indian Ocean, we cannot but recognize the evident superiority of the latter. The anthropoid Ape, the enormous Pachyderms, Elephant, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Giraffe, and, among animals of the same order, the Antelopes, many of which attain the dimensions of the Horse, belong exclusively to the Eastern Hemisphere. The genus Camel, represented in Asia by the Bactrian Camel, in Africa by the Dromedary, is but weakly typified in South America by the Lama, the Vicuña, and the Alpaca, not inelegant in form, but of a markedly inferior stature. And what equality is there between the lordly Tiger of the rank Indian jungles, and the sleek, stealthy Jaguar of the American wilderness? Or who will venture to compare the so-called "Lion of America," the Puma or Cougouar, with the regal quadruped which makes the hot Libyan wastes re-echo with his terrible roar?

Among the Birds, the Phenicoptera, with its disproportionate legs and neck, distributed over all the ancient continent below 40° of latitude, and the Ostrich, properly so called, are much superior in dimensions to their analogues on the other side of the Atlantic, the American Flamingo and the Nandou. So do the Eagles and Vultures of Europe, Asia, and Africa prevail in numbers and force over those of the New World. And the ancient continent can likewise claim as its own the gigantic Epiornis, the wonderful "Roc Bird" of the well-known Oriental legend, whose petrified eggs and some of whose fossil bones have been discovered in Madagascar. It is true, however, that the greatest of living Raptores, the Condor, inhabits exclusively the Cordillera of the Andes:--

"Stands solitary, stands immovable Upon some highest cliff, and rolls his eye, Clear, constant, unobservant, unabashed, In the cold light, above the dews of morn."--(_W. S. Landor._)

But the balance is re-established by the Erpetological and Entomological Fauna of the New World, which can oppose its huge Boas, its Caïmans and Pythons, to the Crocodiles and Gavials of Africa and Asia; its Crotali and Trigonocephali to the Najas of India, the Echidnas of the Cape, and the Cerastes of Egypt and the Sahara; while the Bull Frog of the United States and the Pipa of Guiana are only found on the banks of the vast lonesome swamps of the new continent. As far as the Desert World is concerned, in both hemispheres the legions are innumerable, and their energies commensurate to the greatness of the continual work of destruction and purification which they seem destined to accomplish in all tropical countries.

It is unnecessary to carry any further the parallel between the two hemispheres. We shall more clearly detect their analogies and differences by pursuing the study, already opened up in the Steppes and Seas of Sand, of the principal species proper to the various forms of the Desert, the different regions and divisions of the Savage World.

Yet I must confess that the difficulties of the study increase with the extent of the field we are called upon to explore. The Steppes and Wildernesses of Sand constitute, both in Africa and Asia, regions which are clearly defined, and the poverty both of their fauna and their flora fixes a definite limit to the researches of the naturalist. Such is not the case in the immense countries which now lie before us. Instead of sighing, like Alexander, for more worlds to conquer, the student of science is ever deploring the impossibility of exhausting even a single division of the grand work before him. "Art is long; life is short." The most industrious among us can never rise to the full height of his glorious task; must always remain like a child on the shore of the ocean of truth, and be content with the few shells his nerveless hand contrives to gather. In the wide regions we are about to traverse we feel at every step the colossal character of the enterprise. Every instant their aspect changes; Nature never repeats herself; their products vary with the latitude, the climate, and the soil. To pass in review all the trees and plants and flowers which flourish there, all the animals and peoples which dwell among them, would be nothing less than to embrace in a vast encyclopædia the description and history of two organic kingdoms. But such is not the design of the present volume. I have not undertaken to give an exact picture of nature, which would task to the uttermost the powers of men of such diverse genius as Humboldt, Owen, Lyell, Darwin, Tyndall, Hooker, and Ruskin, but to sketch the bold outlines and more prominent features of the physiognomy of the Desert World, and not to reproduce its more minute details.

My embarrassment, then, arises less from the multitude and infinite variety of the objects we have to examine, than from the difficulty of harmonizing the study with the divisions of this work. How, in fact, can I establish a positive distinction between the animals of the Prairies or the Savannahs and those of the Forests, between those of the latter and the animals proper to the Mountains? For such a purpose it is needful that each of these forms of the Desert World should possess its peculiar fauna; which is true only within very narrow limits. In reality, most animals inhabit or frequent, according to circumstances, sometimes one district, sometimes another, without its being possible to assign with any amount of precision their habitual, or simply their occasional, abode.

I shall avail myself, therefore, of the liberty allowed to every writer who does not design a purely didactical work, by not unnecessarily troubling myself whether the animals whose organization or characteristics attract our notice, particularly affect a low or elevated locality, the shady wood or open plain, the pestilential swamp or the river-watered valley, and by permitting myself, except in the case of some evident and constant partiality, to place them where the most eminent observers assure us they are really, if not exclusively, met with.

On this account, the plains, more or less densely wooded and broken up, which occupy the greater portion of the African Continent, will readily furnish us with the opportunity of studying the majority of animals indigenous to that continent, and, in general, to the entire Tropical zone of the Old World. In fact, nearly all the genera of Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles, are there represented by their most characteristic types. Clothed with a luxuriant vegetation; watered by periodical rains and numerous streams; intersected by thick masses of forests, groves, and thickets; relieved from monotonous uniformity by mountain and ravine, by marshes and lakes of vast extent,--these fields ever exhibit that aspect of busy life under which we love to represent to ourselves the earth when she first emerged from the boiling seas of Chaos, when the forces which had seethed within her bowels for so many thousands of centuries had been tranquillized by the Divine will, and she was despatched on her mysterious course to be the theatre of man's glorious destiny.

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During the daytime silence and solitude prevail over the open plains. It is the hour when most animals seek, under the foliage of the trees, among the tall rank grasses, in the bosom of the waters or under the surface of the earth, a shelter against the swift burning arrows of the sun, and repose immovable in their different lairs. But when the great orb of day sinks towards the horizon, all Nature seems to awake. More imperious needs succeed to those of rest and slumber; hunger and thirst stimulate the most sluggish into exertion. Then the reptile begins to stir in the mud where he lay embedded; the herbivora return to their fresh pastures, and move towards the rivers and ponds in whose waters they may slake their thirst; the carnaria take the same road; they know that in the open plain they will find victims for their murderous jaws. The Desert is astir with strange sounds and mysterious voices; the air re-echoes the thousand discordant cries which ring from the mountains and the rocks; black shadows pass, re-pass, and flit to and fro, in every direction; terror, rage, agony, voracity, all these instincts obtain expression in the dreadful concert; it is the orgie of the appetites, the grand "Witches' Sabbath" of Nature, whose furious animation slackens towards the middle of the night, until, at sunrise, the lively accents and joyous melodies of the birds, and the peaceful pastimes of the other animals of the day, succeed to the lamentations and sinister invocations of the prowlers of the darkness.

In the foremost rank of the great animals to which the fauna of Asia and Africa owes its superiority, I have named the huge Pachyderms,[123] those mighty colossi which may be regarded as the analogues, in the terrestrial creation, of the Cetacean giants of the marine creation. The Pachyderms formed in Cuvier's system a sufficiently natural order, which modern systematists have dismembered, and, as I believe, a little arbitrarily. This order comprised, besides the elephants, the hippopotami, the rhinoceroses, and the tapirs, all the Porcidæ family, and even the Solidungulates, such as the horse and ass. In the present work I shall adopt Cuvier's division. The elephant is the denizen of the forests where, in a succeeding chapter, we shall encounter both him and the rhinoceros. But the hippopotamus belongs incontestably to the fauna of the plain. His name (from the Greek) signifies "River Horse." And, indeed, he lives in the rivers, the pools, the deep marshes; his manners are essentially amphibious. He dives and swims with a surprising ease and agility, considering the enormous bulk of his body, and the shortness of his heavy, unwieldy legs. He is able to remain a long time under water. His colour is a brownish-black, and his proportions, ten to twelve feet in length, and eight to ten in height. His head is immensely large; the mouth cavernous in its prodigious width; the teeth immensely strong, the incisors and canines of the lower jaw being long, and curved forwards; these canines or tusks sometimes measure more than two feet in length, and weigh upwards of six pounds each. Those in the upper jaw are much smaller, and the front teeth are of a moderate size. The broad thick lips are beset with scattered tufts of short bristles; the small quick eyes are placed very near the top of the head; the small ears are slightly pointed, and lined with short thick hair. His food mainly consists of the coarse herbage that flourishes on the banks of lakes and rivers; but Milne Edwards speaks of three or four of them standing knee-deep in the water, forming an irregular line, and pouncing upon the fish brought within their reach by the rapid currents. At night time they abandon their watery haunts to prowl among the sugar-cane plantations, the fields of millet and rice, which they devour with eagerness. Their march is so impetuous, that they break down every barrier; nothing can resist them.

The hippopotamus is spread over all eastern and southern Africa; is found in Nubia, Ethiopia, Abyssinia; at the Cape, the Senegal and the Congo. Both the settlers and the natives of these countries hunt them with ardour for the sake of the ivory they yield, nor is their flesh despised by a keen appetite and vigorous stomach. Sometimes they excavate, in the animal's ordinary route, a tolerably deep pit, beset with sharp pointed poles, and concealed by a covering of leafy branches: sometimes, in the shade of the evening, they lie in ambuscade among the bushes, and aim at his huge bulk the deadly bullet, as he comes up from the water, labouring and bellowing. It is necessary to aim well at his head; for the rest of his body is almost as invulnerable as that of Achilles.

Here is a lively picture from Sir Samuel Baker's valuable volumes, in which the hippopotamus is a foremost figure.

"We were towing through high reeds," he says,[124] "the men invisible, and the rope mowing over the high tops of the grass, when the noise disturbed a hippopotamus from his slumber, and he was immediately perceived close to the boat. He was about half-grown, and in an instant about twenty men jumped into the water in search of him, thinking him a mere baby; but as he suddenly appeared, and was about three times as large as they had expected, they were not very eager to close. However the reis pluckily led the way, and seized him by the hind leg, when the crowd of men rushed in, and we had a grand tussle. Ropes were thrown from the vessel, and nooses were quickly slipped over his head; but he had the best of the struggle, and was dragging the people into the open river; I was therefore obliged to end the sport by putting a ball through his head. He was scored all over by the tusks of some other hippopotamus that had been bullying him."

After conquering your enemy, kill him and eat him: such is the maxim of savage life. It was carried out by Sir Samuel Baker and his men, much to the satisfaction of the conquerors. "A new dish!" exclaims our traveller; "there is no longer mock-turtle soup; _real_ turtle is _mock_ hippopotamus. I tried boiling the fat, flesh, and skin together, the result being that the skin assumes the appearance of the green fat of the turtle, but is far superior. A piece of the head thus boiled, and then soused in vinegar, with chopped onions, cayenne pepper, and salt, throws brawn completely in the shade."

The same traveller relates that the natives on the shores of the Albert N'yanza, previous to embarking on a voyage, cast a handful of beads into the lake, to propitiate the hippopotamus, that their canoe may not be upset.

The genus _Tapir_ is wanting in Africa; but we find a species, _Tapirus Indicus_, in India and the Indian Archipelago, where it was first noticed by Diard and Duvaucel. These naturalists saw an individual of this species at Barrackpore, near Calcutta, whither he had been imported from the island of Sumatra. "I was much surprised," says Diard, "that so large an animal had not hitherto been discovered; but I was much more so, on seeing in the Asiatic Society's Museum the head of a similar animal, a native of Malacca, which had been sent to the Society, on the 29th of April 1806, by M. Faghuarie, governor of that province." This tapir is as common at Malacca as the rhinoceros and elephant. In size he closely approaches the common ass. He is black all over, except the ears, which are fringed with white, and on the back, which is of a pale gray. His habits are identical with those of the American tapirs, to be described hereafter.

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In the African plains, from Nubia and Senegal to the Cape, we meet with a Pachyderm intermediate between the hippopotamus and the wild boar: this is the _Phacocoerus_, which was known to the ancients, and designated by credulous Ælian the _Sus tetrakeros_, or "Boar with Four Horns." He has no horns, however, but only, beneath each ear, a horny protuberance, which greatly disfigures his head, and procures him the popular appellation of the "Warty Hog"--the "Bush Vark," or "Bush Hog" of South Africa (_Choeripotamus Africanus_). He has four projecting tusks, and long sharp tufted ears. His stature, his feet, his tail, the mane of stiff bristles which garnishes his neck, identify him with the wild boar; but his body, almost naked on the flanks and hinder part, likens him to an hippopotamus. He is gregarious, of fierce and brutal habits, and lives chiefly in the bushes or tall herbage.

The Solidungulæ (or Solid-hoofed), which roam among the wide pasturages of the Tropical regions of the Ancient World, contrast, by the elegance of their forms and the beauty of their clothing, with the unwieldy Pachyderms, of rugged and swarthy hide, placed by Cuvier under the same classification. The Wild Horse does not exist in these latitudes, though we may find there the most beautiful species of the genus: the Hémione, the Onagra, the Zebra, the Daw, and the Quagga. The _Hemionus_ ("half-ass"), which we are endeavouring to acclimatize in Europe, and numerous specimens of which may be seen in the Zoological Gardens of London and Paris, is of a clear brown colour all over the body, except the belly and legs, which are white. His mane is short, and his tail garnished only with a tuft of hairs at the extremity. The species is Asiatic, and appears to have originated in India, whence it spread westward into Asia Minor, and northward into the Steppes which stretch to the base of the Himalayas. The modern names are _Koulem_, _Kiang_, and _Dziggethai_ (or "Mountain Ass"). He roams in great troops across the dreary Asiatic deserts, and is fond of bitter and saline herbage, and brackish water. Now, as of old, he has "the range of the mountains for his pasture," and the "salt places" for his dwelling. His swiftness and wariness render his chase an exciting pastime, and in Persia he is considered the noblest of game.

The _Hemippus_ ("half horse"), a species closely allied to the Hemionus, is a native of the fertile districts of Syria and Arabia. Another species, the _Tarpan_, roams the Steppes of Tartary, and is with great difficulty tamed to the use of man. He is of a reddish colour, but the mane and tail are black, and along the back runs a black stripe. The _Onagra_, _Onager_, or Wild Ass of Tartary, is represented in Abyssinia by a smaller variety, of very graceful form, whose hide exhibits already, upon the legs, some of those well-defined stripes which so magnificently adorn the "outer vestment" of the Quagga, the Daw, and, especially, the Zebra.

All these Solidungulæ are identical in habits and character: social among themselves, they are fierce and mistrustful towards other animals. When in peril, they seek safety at first by rapid flight; but if driven to bay, they assume a courageous bearing, assail their enemies intrepidly, and frequently compel them to retreat. It is even asserted that the Quagga (_Asinus Quagga_) will mingle with herds of domestic animals, and defend them against the attacks of beasts of prey. According to Dr. Gray, this animal derives his name from his voice, which resembles the barking of a dog, or a sound like _Couagg_, or _Quag_. Pennant calls him the _Quacha_. He resembles the horse in his haughty bearing and rapid movements. His head, neck, mane, and shoulders are blackish-brown, banded with white; the stomach, hind parts, and legs are whitish; the dorsal line is black; the ears have two irregular black bands and a white tip. In the _Daw_, the blackish-brown tint extends over all the upper parts of the body, as well as the stripes, which are alternately black and light brown. The Quagga and the Daw belong to Southern Africa, and especially to Caffraria. The habitat of the Zebra appears to be more extended in range. He is found even as far north as Abyssinia. He was known to the Romans under the name of the _Hippotigres_, and figured in the sanguinary sports of the Amphitheatre. Assuredly he is the handsomest species of the genus _Equus_ (Horse). He is as tall as the Hemionus; his legs are shapely, his mien and bearing full of spirit; he has a well-proportioned head, and a coat of incomparable richness of design, with the skin lustrous, and large black stripes symmetrically arranged over the whole body, on a ground of pure white.

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Africa, as I have said above, is the native country of the large Ruminants. Not less remarkable than the Camel in the fantastic originality of his form, which matches the exquisite richness of his skin, the gigantic _Giraffe_ (_Camelopardalis Giraffa_) is distributed over nearly the whole continent south of the Sahara. Sometimes he even ventures into the Desert; but most frequently his long neck and tall legs are seen in the fertile plains of Negroland, the Soudan, the Senegal, and Nubia. "His head," says a popular zoologist, "resembles that of the camel in the absence of a naked muzzle, and in the shape and organization of the nostrils, which are oblique and narrow apertures, defended by the hair which grows from their margins, and surrounded by cutaneous muscular fibres, by which the animal can close them at will. This is a beautiful provision for the defence of the air passages, and the irritable membrane lining the olfactory cavities, against the fine particles of sand which the storms of the Desert raise in almost suffocating clouds. The large, dark, and lustrous eyes of the giraffe, which beam with a peculiarly mild but fearless expression, are so placed as to take in a wider range of the horizon than is subject to the vision of any other quadruped. While browsing on his favourite acacia, the giraffe, by means of his laterally-projecting orbits, can direct his sight so as to anticipate a threatened attack in the rear from the stealthy lion, or any other foe of the Desert. To an open attack he sometimes makes a successful defence by striking out his powerful and well-armed feet; and the king of beasts is said to be frequently repelled and disabled by the wounds which the giraffe has thus inflicted with his hoofs." The lion, however, seldom attacks him unless he can surprise him in a state of repose, when he will leap upon his victim's back and tear him to pieces.

Le Vaillant has justly observed that if precedency among animals were determined by their height, the giraffe would hold the first rank. The most careless observer must be impressed by the enormous length of his fore-legs, and his long tapering neck, which enables him to browse upon the fresh foliage and green young shoots of the loftiest trees; nor can he fail to admire his small and elevated head, his brilliant beaming eyes, and his mildness of aspect. Unusual as are the animal's proportions, they are not inharmonious, and his appearance is eminently picturesque. When full grown, he measures seventeen feet from the top of the head to the fore-feet. This, however, is a maximum. It should be added that his fore-legs are not so much longer than the hind, but the shoulders are extraordinarily high. The animal's colour is a light fawn, marked with numerous darker spots. His horns consist of two porous bony substances, about three inches long, which form, as it were, a part of the skull.

Several species of antelopes and wild oxen traverse in numerous herds the wide prairies of Africa and Asia. Among the African species, I may name the _Bubalus_, which lives principally in the north-west, and whose keen stout horns, disposed like the prongs of a pitchfork, render him exceedingly formidable; the _Gnu_, or Connochetæ (_Catoblepus Gnu_), which inhabits the wild karoos and hilly districts of South Africa, in migratory herds, and is distinguished by the weird ugliness of his head, with its curved horns, and its beautiful flowing mane, white at the base, and black at the tips; the _Oreas Lanna_, improperly called the "Cape Eland" (_Antilope Oreas_), a graceful animal, as large as the horse, and five feet high at the shoulder, with straight pointed horns, whose great strength is augmented by a spiral wreath; and the _Oryx_ (_Oryx gazella_), Egyptian Antelope, or Pasom, somewhat superior in size to a deer, with horns three feet long, black hoofs and horns, a white head, and neck and upper part of the body of a pale bluish-gray.

Tropical Asia presents but a very small number of Antelopes, properly so called, of which the _Nylghau_, or White-footed Antelope (_Partux picta_) is the largest. Its face is long and narrow; its black, round, and pointed horns, though only about seven inches long, are slightly curved forwards; the broad ears are fringed with white hairs; along the top of the deep narrow neck runs a slight mane of black hair, which is continued to some distance down the back; a long hanging tuft of a similar colour adorns the breast. This animal is said to have abounded in the forests between Delhi and Lahore in the days of Aurungzebe, and formed one of the objects of the chase with that "king of kings" during his expedition to Cashmere. The Hindoo name, "Nyl-ghau," signifies "blue ox," which is true of the male, but the female is a pale brown. He is a courageous animal, very difficult to tame; travellers affirm that when attacked he throws himself on his knees, and in this position moves forward, until, suddenly leaping to his feet, he rushes impetuously upon his enemy, and smites him vigorously with his sharp horns.

I must not omit to particularize, among the great Ruminants of the Tropical regions of the Old World, the Buffaloes, or Wild Oxen, which feed in immense troops in the fertile and well-watered prairies. The two African species or varieties which are best known are, the Buffalo of Caffraria, and the Short-horned Buffalo. The former is not confined to the Caffre country, as his name would lead one to suppose; but ranges as far as Abyssinia. His horns, very wide, and close together at the base, form, above the eyes, a kind of helmet very useful to the animal in pushing aside the bushes that impede his progress. His hair is rough and black over the whole body. The short-horned buffalo has a smooth brown skin, muzzle nearly black, ears large, horns arched and of moderate dimensions.

These buffaloes, despite of their ferocious aspect and savage habits, are wholly inoffensive, and in all cases of danger are tempted at first to take to flight; but should they be pressed too closely, or wounded, their irascible and vindictive disposition speedily displays itself. When the negroes hunt the buffalo, says Paul Gervais, they are very careful to attack isolated individuals only, because, in the herds of these animals some will always be found disposed to avenge the death of their companions, and pursue the hunters to the uttermost. In their excesses of fury they strike the ground with their horns; dash their bodies against the trees in which their enemies have taken refuge; sometimes they will spend their rage upon one another, or upon the bodies of those of their kind which have been brought low.

Asia is the home of the Common Buffalo (_Bos bubalus_), and from thence he has migrated into several islands of the Indian Archipelago, Eastern Europe, and even into Italy. In France and Great Britain he has long been domesticated. But there also exist in several Indian provinces some savage species of the _Arnee Buffalo_ (_Bos Arni_ of Dr. Shaw), easily recognized by his horns of prodigious size and length, which frequently measure six feet in length, and eighteen inches in circumference at the base.

Travellers have asserted that nearly all the herbivora, and in particular the more feeble and timorous, evince a marked preference for open and level places; to such an extent, that the herds of antelopes, gazelles, and zebras may be seen abandoning their pastures when the herbage is unusually luxuriant. It is in the thickets, the matted and almost impenetrable jungles, and among the tall rank grasses, that the beast of prey glides stealthily and unseen upon his intended victim. Where the surface of the ground is smooth and bare, the herbivora can descry an approaching enemy, and take to flight or make ready for defence. It is not, however, the carnaria that they have most cause to dread, but man; not less cruel he than the stealthy lion or the prowling tiger, and far more formidable since European commerce has furnished the savage with firearms. He quickly learns to make use of these; but prior to their introduction into wilderness, prairie, and forest, he had devised against his prey various more or less successful means of destruction.

In Central Africa, for instance, the Bakouain Negroes, to capture _en masse_ buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, antelopes, and even rhinoceroses, which gather in crowds around the grateful waters, construct a colossal and all-devouring snare, which they call a _Hopo_.

"This snare," says Dr. Livingstone,[125] "consists of two very stout and very high fences, approaching each other so as to assume the shape of a V; at the apex of the angle, instead of completely joining them, they are prolonged in a straight line, forming an alley about fifty paces in length, abutting on a ditch which may measure from four to five yards square, and be from six to eight feet deep. Trunks of trees are arranged cross-wise on the borders of this trench, chiefly on the side from which the animals will arrive, and upon the opposite one, by which they will endeavour to escape. These trees form an advanced border above the ditch, rendering flight impossible, and the whole is carefully covered over with reeds, which hide the snare, and make it resemble a trap placed among the herbage. As the two fences are often a mile in length, while the base of the triangle which they define is nearly of the same dimensions, a company who form around the hopo a circle of three to four miles in circumference, by gradually drawing it closer, are certain to collect a great quantity of game. The hunters direct by their cries the animals which they surround, and cause them to reach the summit of the hopo. Men concealed at this point then fling their javelins into the midst of the affrighted herd, which, dashing headlong through the solitary opening it can find, involves itself in the narrow alley leading to the ditch. The animals fall in pell-mell, until the snare is filled with a living mass, which enables the others to escape by passing over the bodies of the victims. The spectacle is horrifying; the hunters, intoxicated by the pursuit, and no longer controlling themselves, strike these graceful animals with a delirious joy, while the poor creatures, crushed to the bottom of the abyss beneath the weight of the dead and dying, raise from time to time the pile of carcasses, by struggling, in the midst of their agony, against the burden which suffocates them."

Of the _corral_ in which the Cingalese entraps the elephant, and of the ingenious snares laid by the Malay or the Indian for the murderous tiger, I shall speak hereafter. Between man and the carnivora it was natural that a deadly war should be incessantly waged; but humanity would seem to dictate towards the inoffensive herbivora a less sanguinary hostility.